Science vs Technology
Questioner: So, my question is: what are your thoughts on the developments in science and technology affecting what is right and what is wrong? Will it make it clearer, or will it make it more obscure?
For example, to take the case of animal cruelty—by eating non-veg and the dairy industry—technology is now developing lab-grown meat and such alternatives. Now, it is making it clearer what is right. Even if people want to eat meat, they can eat meat without animal cruelty.
But then, there are also technologies that make it more obscure. For example, during the pandemic, when we were having online sessions and online exams, technology allowed everyone to cheat in a way that would not be possible in offline exams. Many had justifications for doing so.
In a sense, what I'm trying to say is that technological development is giving us new options. Some options make it clearer that a new option is right, while some options create more confusion. So, I just want to hear your thoughts on how technology and scientific developments affect what is right and what is wrong. Thank you.
Acharya Prashant: These two—when it comes to the inner domain and how they affect a person from the inside—these two are not in the same dimension. Science and technology, you see, science helps you learn the facts of the universe, including the human body and the brain, right? That's what science enables you to look into. And when that happens, a lot of superstitions are cleared, and needless beliefs are removed.
Right? And when those beliefs are gone, the inner center operate from, that improves. I'll clarify through an example.
Let's say you believe in racial supremacy, as the Nazis did. Now, you can have science that tells you that when it comes to physicality, races are hardly different from each other. They talked about "pure Aryan blood," for example. Science will tell you that when it comes to blood, there are just four categories—and then the Rh factor, plus or minus. There is nothing called "Aryan blood." You can be O, B, but you cannot be Aryan.
When you fall sick, you do not go out looking for Aryan blood. So, the egoistic center that you had is challenged—rather, clarified and purified—by the findings of science. Science has helped human beings a great deal, not just materially, not just physically, but also internally.
You think of the travails of ancient man. The fellow did not know what all those things in the sky were. Sometimes, he thought it was a large black canopy, and all these things were little gems and diamonds studded on the canopy. All that would lead to a lot of inner confusion, that would translate into personal incapacity.
When you do not know who you are or the world you are operating in, then everything you think, feel, or do simply goes haywire, does it not? I do not know why there is an eclipse, I might feel that I need to slaughter my neighbor to avoid the curse of the gods. That was indeed happening in several parts of the world.
The sun appears hidden—surely, God is demanding some sacrifice to reappear. Otherwise, God is threatening to go away, and if the sun goes away, that would be a bad thing. So, what do I do? Then, some learned priest comes over and says, "You know, you need to sacrifice your neighbor," because the neighbor, in some way, was aspiring to be the next priest. But that's the hidden story, so the neighbor has to be sacrificed. And All these things were happening.
Backwardness in science leads to a lot of inner darkness. Inner darkness. The one who we are inwardly needs science—not just spirituality. He needs science to be a great human being.
The Upanishads put it this way: you need both Vidya and Avidya if you are to be of any avail. Vidya is knowledge of yourself—your own inner processes, how your thoughts operate, your mind, your feelings, your impulses, instincts, reactions, and relationships. All those things, that’s Vidya.
The Upanishads very bravely and forthrightly declare that if you do not have Avidya—Avidya is knowledge of the universe, which you could loosely call as scientific knowledge, that if you do not have Avidya —then there is no point in having Vidya.
In fact, they declare that between someone who has only Vidya and someone who has only Avidya, the one having only Avidya has an edge actually. Then, they say that the great one, the liberated one, is the one who has both — Vidya and Avidya.
If you want to cross over the ocean of ignorance, you need knowledge in both directions. You need to know the world, which comes to you from science, and you need to know yourself, which comes from self-observation. So, that's science for you.
Now, what's technology?
Technology is the application of science according to your own convenience, need, greed, interest, or whatever. Science purifies the one within, whereas technology is simply a toy in the hands of the one within.
Please understand—whosoever you are, you will be pulled up if you really go deep into science. That is the reason why we find a lot of wisdom in the personalities of a lot of eminent scientists. The same thing cannot be said for CEOs of tech companies.
You cannot compare, let's say, Bill Gates to Albert Einstein—they are very different. Technology is simply your slave, while science can make you better. In that sense, science can pull you upwards, whereas technology is something that is always behind you. You are operating your slave called technology, like a dog on a leash.
So, we need a lot of science to be better, and we need a lot of self-knowledge to be better. If we do not have science and self-knowledge, which is Vidya and Avidya, then, unfortunately, technology can be a very, very dangerous thing.
Technology in the hands of the wrong kind of population will prove disastrous for everybody—disastrous for the entire planet and self-destructive for the human species. So, progress in the field of technology alone does not mean much. In fact, it can be a cause for concern.
You would have heard that anecdote—the monkey and the sword and the king. The King had a very dear pet monkey, and the monkey, too, was fond of the king. One day, the king went to sleep, and the monkey was watching over him. A fly came from somewhere and sat right on the nose of the king. The monkey thought, "Such a great king, and a mere fly is perched on his nose?" So, what does the monkey do? It picks up the sword and—slash! What does technology do? Instead of a sword, it gives an intercontinental missile to the monkey.
That is exactly what has happened. Inwardly, we are still monkeys, but technology has given us huge power—power that we don’t even deserve, power that we cannot even responsibly wield. So, science is useful. Spirituality is useful. But technology can be disastrous.
For technology to be of constructive use to human beings, you would have guessed by now what is needed. It is needed that growth in wisdom keeps pace with growth in technology. If the rate of growth of wisdom lags behind the rate of growth of technology, then we are hurling towards disaster.
Questioner: Do you think the rate of growth of wisdom is matching the rate of growth of technology?
Acharya Prashant: No way. No way! I think you, too, know that—you just wanted to hear it from me. So, we all know that. We all know that. We all know that!
The monkey has, at most, graduated to an orangutan, but in no way are we yet capable of being called human beings. And we have unmatched power.
You see what we have done with that power. Where is the forest cover? Do you know the number of species that are going extinct every day? We have been able to do that only because we have a lot of economic and technical power at our disposal, and we are using that to ruin this planet. In fact, it's already gone. Already gone! We are, de facto, in the sixth mass extinction phase.
So, that’s what we have done.
Questioner: Thank you, sir.
